


Déjà Vu

by rosecake



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F, Faked Death, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-12-27 02:15:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18294797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/pseuds/rosecake
Summary: Michael receives two messages, one right after the other.





	Déjà Vu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



_**Don't believe everything you read.** _

That was the extent of the message. No audio, no video, just one cryptic line of text in her inbox. A quick look at the metadata told Michael she'd sent it to herself, which wasn't an uncommon trick with hackers who didn't want a message's origins to be traced, although it happened more often on public comm networks. Hacking into a Starfleet comm unit must have been difficult, but it certainly wasn't impossible.

Her efforts to track down the source of the message were stymied when, a few hours later, it deleted itself. Michael looked through the system backups, her incoming logs, even through the Discovery's general databurst records, and found no record that it had ever existed.

If she were prone to such things she might have thought she'd imagined it, but she had no reason to doubt her perception of reality at the moment. The message had been there, even if she couldn't explain the how or why of it.

Just one more little mystery in a universe full of them.

-

A week later Michael got another text-only message in her inbox. This one she was expecting. Admiral Cornwell had delivered the news herself by holo a day ago, of course, but Starfleet always sent an official notification in writing no matter what the circumstances were. It was procedure. They'd sent her one the last time Captain Philippa Georgiou had died even though she'd been there when it happened. Even though she'd already been facing charges for letting it happen.

_**We regret to inform you that-** _

Michael stopped reading, because it really was the exact same message, right down to the name, and she could feel something like hysteria starting to well up in her, threatening to spill over and wreck what little control of her emotions she had left. The feeling stopped just short of overwhelming her, though. She still remembered the message she'd received earlier.

_Don't believe everything you read._

-

The words stuck in Michael's head, and what should have been a period of mourning instead turned into a period of doubt and uncertainty.

In the first few weeks everything seemed perfectly clear. The message had come from Georgiou; there was no other satisfactory explanation for it. The timing alone was enough to establish a connection, and considering that Admiral Cornwell had been unable to locate a body? The only sensible conclusion was that Philippa Georgiou was still alive. The mirrored version of her, at any rate, and even though Michael had convinced herself the Emperor was alive, that didn't help with the newly awakened grief over her own Captain.

Then weeks turned into months with no sign of Philippa Georgiou, no additional cryptic messages in Michael's inbox to reassure her, and Michael was forced to consider that it might not be the sensible conclusion after all. It might just be what Michael _wanted_ to believe.

"I used to wonder if my sister was alive or not," said Saru. "In the end, I decided that if she were dead, I would have known. I would have felt it, somehow, even with the distance between us."

Michael would like to be able to think like that, but it wasn't in her nature. Her connection to Philippa was based purely in human emotion, as conflicted as that emotion was. There was no telepathic link, no palpable bond that Michael could reach out to for assurance.

"In a way, it doesn't even matter," said Michael. "If she is alive, and I never see her again, then to me her death may as well be real."

It felt hollow even as she said it, because the uncertainty still ate at her worse than anything. Her mind slid around the thought of Philippa dying, unwilling to dwell on the possibility. She couldn't deal with it, not again, not even if this wasn't really the second time for the Philippa in question. That was the whole reason Emperor Georgiou had ended up in this universe in the first place. Michael just couldn't let go.

She would rather Philippa be alive. Even if the thought of what havoc she could be reaping in the shadows made her stomach turn.

"If she is alive I'm certain she'll make herself known to you eventually," said Saru. "She won't be able to resist."

He didn't exactly sound pleased about it. He'd always found Philippa's interest in Michael concerning, and Michael was sure that if he weren't so concerned for her feelings he'd be relieved to think that Captain Georgiou's corrupted doppelgänger was safely dead and gone.

He sighed when Michael didn't respond. "Things will settle eventually," he said. "Once they do you can investigate her alleged death until you're satisfied."

Michael nodded. She would have looked into it on her own already, but the threat posed by Control had been constant sword dangling above their heads for what seemed a lifetime now. She couldn't abandon Discovery now, not while Control still dodged the crew's every step.

Either Control would be destroyed and she would have her chance to figure out what had really happened with Philippa, or Control would win and it wouldn't matter because Michael herself would be dead.

-

Michael liked to conduct extensive research before stepping foot anyplace new. It helped her to feel prepared, to feel in control. Unfortunately there seemed to be less and less time for it as the struggle between Starfleet and Control progressed, and so she found herself on Korell not knowing much about it other than its name and that it was an mid-sized M-class planet.

She'd come looking for a data-core and she'd found it, but she wasn't sure if she was going to find her way back to the Discovery alive with it.

Unfamiliar looking people swarmed in the streets, taking no notice of the alien face under her hood as Michael moved as quickly as she could through the crowds. She may not be picking up much attention from the locals, but her injured arm was leaving a steady trail of blood behind her, and she didn't think her pursuers were going to have any trouble tracking her down.

Saru had sent her on this mission, his eyes red and his posture bent with stress. Starfleet had waited so long to make him Captain, and she wished he'd had an easier time of it. "I don't want to send you alone, but-"

"I'll be fine," Michael had said, doing her best to reassure him. She'd known she was lying when she said it, but Saru wouldn't have asked her to go alone if they'd people to spare, and the hard truth was that they did not. Years of trying to dodge Control's attacks had taken their toll.

She found a quiet looking alley and turned into it, collapsing into an alcove. Shrapnel had torn though her bicep, hitting her hard enough to crack the bone, and she had nothing to slow the bleeding with. She could use the fabric of her hood, but that would mean drawing instant attention the moment she stepped back out into the streets. One of the local hospitals could probably patch her up, but they would have security cameras, and someone on the staff would almost certainly want to report an injured alien turning up in the emergency room to the authorities. Michael wasn't sure how deeply Control had penetrated into the planet's grid, but one way or the other it would manage to find her.

Bleeding out in an alleyway wasn't a very good alternative, though. Michael closed her eyes and tried to inhale evenly, tried all those Vulcan tricks she'd been taught to ease panic and pain so she could concentrate, but there was only so much she could do. No amount of meditation would help her find a solution to her dilemma if there was no solution to be found.

Finding a hospital would be better than nothing. If she was lucky, they'd be able to patch her up well enough that she could take off running before Control noticed her presence. She tried to stand but her legs wouldn't move. Just the effort made her feel dizzy, and Michael realized that she may have misjudged just how bad a state she was already in.

A hand brushed against her shoulder and she jerked away, throwing herself off balance. She hadn't heard anyone approach, but then again, it was hard to hear anything over the pounding of her own heart.

"Calm down," said the woman. She had Philippa's voice, Philippa's face, but Michael's mind refused to acknowledge that it was Philippa standing in front of her. "It's me."

Michael sucked in air, her chest heaving as she tried to get a grasp on what was happening. Maybe she was hallucinating. The pain was blinding, overwhelming. Maybe the blood loss was worse than she'd thought, maybe her brain was throwing up visions as she died.  
"I'm being followed," managed Michael. Her chest felt tight, too tight for speech, and took her a few tries to get the words out, but she needed to let Philippa know. Philippa was too calm, too content. She was even smiling as she reached out to pull Michael's hood back into position.

"Not anymore. I took care of them before I tracked you down," said Philippa. She pressed a hypo to Michael's neck and Michael didn't even feel it, wouldn't have even noticed it if she hadn't heard that tell-tale hiss. "You're safe for now." 

-

Michael woke up in a small room with no memory of how she'd gotten there. Philippa was in a chair pulled up alongside the bed, and she remembered Philippa, remembered the hypo. But after that there was nothing but darkness.

There was a window across the room, and even though the curtains were mostly drawn she could still see a sliver of the unfamiliar cityscape peeking through, and she knew they were still on the same planet.

"I need to use your communicator," said Michael, struggling to sit up. Her right arm was heavily wrapped in bandages and she couldn't move it, but her left arm still worked fine.

Philippa held it up but didn't offer it to her. "That's all you've got to say to me?"

Michael was relieved when Philippa let her snatch it out of her hand. She hailed Discovery's frequency but there was no acknowledgment.

"They're out of range," said Philippa.

"We need to find a comm station," said Michael. Some of the technology on this planet was old, but they were still spacefaring. They'd have stations capable of sending deep space signals further than a hand-held comm.

"Control will be monitoring the local comms, and they'll get to us before the Discovery can," said Georgiou. "Besides, you're in no condition to go anywhere."

Michael's hand went to her pocket, only to realize belatedly that she was wearing an oversized gray shirt, not her uniform, not the local clothes she'd pulled together for the mission. She was clean, all the dirt and ash and blood washed off her, and Georgiou had bandaged up other scrapes, not just her arm.

It wasn't anything she wouldn't have done for anyone else, but Michael could feel the heat rising in her face regardless. She ignored it. "You have the data-core? You don't need to send a signal through the planetary comms, you just need to find equipment that can boost your own signal."

"Michael," said Georgiou, placing a hand on Michael's shoulder to push her back down on the bed. "You need-"

Michael knocked Georgiou's hand away. She'd been sent on a mission and she was going to find a way to complete it, and she wasn't ready to think or talk about anything else yet.

"We need to contact Discovery," said Michael. She had no idea what had happened to her own communicator. It was a newer model than Georgiou's, capable of sending a signal much further, but it had probably been crushed in the fight. Control had collapsed the whole building to try and stop her from getting away. There wouldn't be any signal for Discovery to trace, no response if they hailed. "They probably think I'm dead."

"A little worry won't kill any of them," said Georgiou. Her voice was softer than normal, almost reassuring, so completely out of character for her that for one disorienting second Michael thought it was a different version of Philippa with her.

If Michael's arm worked she would have slapped her across the face.

"It hurts," snapped Michael. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes, and as embarrassed as she was with the display of emotion she couldn't do anything to stop it. "I don't want the people I care about thinking I'm dead because I know it _hurts_."

Georgiou looked at her, no trace of sympathy or guilt on her face. "I sent you a message before I did it."

"A single cryptic text message doesn't count!" Michael's face was hot, and she knew there were more important things going on in the universe, but at that precise moment it was hard to focus on anything other than how angry she was. "It could have been from anyone, about anything!"

Philippa reached out for her and Michael tried to pull away, tears streaming down her face now, but there wasn't anywhere for her to move.

"Careful," said Philippa, wrapping her arms around Michael and pulling her close. "You shouldn't move the arm too much. The bone is broken and there's not much I can do about that at the moment."

Georgiou must have given her some kind of painkiller, because her arm didn't hurt. There was no feeling in it at all. Maybe the drugs explained why Michael was reacting the way she was.

"I thought you were dead." It wasn't exactly true - she'd never really been sure, but that hadn't made it any easier.

"It's okay," said Philippa, slowly dragging her hand in circles along Michael's back. "I'm here now."

Michael was relieved and angry at the same time, and she had no way of reconciling those two things, so she kept silent as Georgiou laid down on the bed beside her, solid and undeniably real as she pressed her face against Michael's neck.

"How is your arm?" she asked.

"I can't feel it."

Georgiou nodded as if that were best. Given the extend of the injury, it probably was. "How is the rest of you?"

Michael really wasn't sure. "I'm tired," she said, but that didn't really cover it. "I'm exhausted."

"You can sleep," said Georgiou. "I'll be here when you wake up."

-

She woke up again as Philippa unwrapped the bandage around her arm. Michael had gotten used to the numbness, and she was surprised at just how bad the injury looked when it didn't feel like anything at all. "Don't look at it," said Philippa, laying down fresh bandages. She must have run out of whatever was in her medkit, because the new bandages looked more like torn fabric than medical grade gauze.

"I feel fine," protested Michael. A little light-headed, but she wasn't sure if that was the injury or if it was Philippa's presence. Either way, she wasn't a child who needed to be told not to look at something gory.

"I'm sure you _feel_ fine, I've already used half my hypos on you," said Philippa. "That doesn't mean you're well. It'll take an actual hospital to fix this."

Philippa's communicator was on a table by the bed. A light on it blinked steadily as it sent a constant hail to Discovery. "When were they scheduled to come back for you?" asked Philippa.

"As soon as they could," said Michael. They had to handle the situation on Mekor-9 first, and then go pick Tilly up from the wreckage of Sub-Station 89. "Five days, maybe. How long have I been out?"

"It's been three days since I found you," said Philippa, and Michael looked back at the communicator. She'd been on the planet already for about three and a half days before that. Discovery should have been back already. If they'd run into trouble, or if they thought she was already dead and had re-prioritized...

"They'll be here soon," said Michael.

When she was done with the bandages Philippa set Michael's arm carefully back down on the bed, and then she stood to wash her hands. Maybe she'd heard the doubt in Michael's voice, because when she came back to the bed she slid in under the sheets beside her. She was careful not to jostle Michael's bad arm, but it was a small bed, and Philippa ended up half on top of her.

"I'm sure they will," she said.

Michael's first instinct was to tell her to get off, but she swallowed it down. The weight of Philippa's body felt reassuring, felt nicer than she expected it to.

"I missed you," said Philippa.

"You could have seen me whenever you wanted," said Michael, surprised at the bitterness in her own voice.

Philippa sighed before kissing Michael's neck. "I'll make it up to you."

"This isn't making it up to me," said Michael. She closed her eyes and exhaled as Philippa ran a hand down her thigh. "This is just you playing games like you always do."

Philippa pressed her face to Michael's chest, her teeth catching in the gray fabric of Michael's shirt, and all Michael could see of her was her hair, spilling out across her back in waves. "Everything's a game, Michael. That's just how life works. It doesn't have to be bad."

"I'm not-" started Michael, and she collapsed into silence as Philippa slid her hand between Michael's legs.

"I'll stop if you want me to," said Philippa, her voice low as Michael gasped. She sounded quite certain of herself, certain that Michael would never to tell her to stop, and it was hard for Michael to trust her sincerity when her fingers were already inside her.

"There are other ways of showing affection," said Michael, her voice shaking more than she would like. It wasn't a refusal, even though she knew she should tell Philippa to stop. "You know that, right?"

"Yes," said Philippa, her fingers curling, and Michael's last thought of objecting died. "But this way is my favorite."

-

"I'm hot," said Michael. It was the first thing that came to mind.

"I know, but stop trying to kick the sheets off," said Philippa, tugging the bedding back into position. "It's not the blankets, it's the fever."

Michael shifted, and the movement hurt. "I can feel my arm," she said. It was a dull pain, hot and throbbing, and it wasn't just in her arm - it pulsed up through her shoulder, through her chest.

"I'm running low on hypos," said Philippa. She sounded concerned. "If Discovery doesn't get here soon we're going to have to take our chances with a local hospital."

"They'll come," said Michael. Her mouth felt dry, and trying to speak was unpleasant. "How long has it been?"

"Nearly a week," said Philippa, and Michael wasn't sure if she meant a week since Michael had been dropped planet-side or week since Philippa had found her. I couldn't have been a week since Philippa found her, though, that was too long. She didn't remember enough days.

Philippa put the back of her hand to Michael's head, then to her neck. "They're taking too long," she said, and the heat of the anger in her voice was a sharp contrast to the reassuring coolness of her skin.  

Micheal took her hand. "They'll come," she said. 

-

An insistent beeping woke Michael up. She recognized the tone immediately, knew that Discovery had picked up the hail and was trying to answer it, but when she reached for the communicator it was too far away. She tried to find the strength to sit up, to lean over, but she couldn't manage it.

"Here," said Philippa, handing it to her, and then handing it to her again after Michael dropped it.

"Answer it," said Michael, struggling to get her fingers to tighten around it. Philippa shook her head.

"I'm dead, remember? And I'd like it to stay that way as far as the rest of Starfleet is concerned. You can answer it yourself, Michael, and they'll beam you up. Alone."

She could hear Saru's voice through the communicator, insistent and alarmed, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. Philippa was helping her hold it up, it couldn't be more than a few inches from her ears, but the noise still sounded as if it was coming from a different plane of existence.

Michael opened her mouth but no sound came out.

"It needs to be you, Michael," said Philippa.

Philippa was insane. At some point Saru was going to ask her who'd bandaged her up, who's communicator she'd used, how she'd survived, and Michael was going to tell him, because keeping secrets never turned out well in the long run.

And, at any rate, speaking seemed to be beyond Michael at the moment. "I can't," she tried to say, but all that came out was a pathetic croaking noise.

Michael managed to drop the communicator again, even though Philippa was helping her hold it, and Philippa went still for a second. "Fine," she said, sighing as she picked it up.

"Discovery," she said, her voice loud and clear, and Michael could hear confusion coming from the other end of the line. "Two to beam up."

-

The next thing Michael knew she was in Dicovery's sickbay. Her mind felt clear at the moment, even though the past week was still hazy when she tried to think back. She tried to clench her right fist and her fingers responded, curling around each other with no resistance or pain. The bandages were gone, and when she lifted her arm to get a better look at it there was nothing but a light, shiny patch where her new skin hadn't quite fully healed over.

"Right as rain," said Philippa, and Michael looked over to see her and Culber approaching.

"You're fine now," said Culber, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Even though Emperor Georgiou here was pumping you full of narcotics when she should have been giving you antibiotics."

"I made due with what I had," said Philippa, rolling her eyes. "Culber's just jealous he's not the only one on this ship to have cheated death anymore."

Culber refused to acknowledge her. "I can make her leave," he said to Michael. Michael curled her fingers around and then rested her hand on Culber's. Everything felt normal except for the fact that Philippa was in the room, smiling at her under sickbay's harsh lights.

"It's fine," said Michael. "She can stay."

Culber didn't look particularly happy about it but he nodded. "Call if you need anything," he said. "I'm going to let Saru and the others know you're awake."

"What are you going to do now that everyone knows you're alive again?"

Philippa shrugged as she slumped down in the chair beside Michael's bed. "I assume Saru's going to tell Section 31 I'm alive at some point, and they'll want to arrest me."

"What for?" asked Michael.

"Lots of things," she said, smiling in a way that made Michael think that, whatever they wanted to arrest her for, she certainly deserved it. "But he told me he wasn't going to call anyone before he spoke with you, so I should be fine for at least the next ten minutes or so."

Michael swallowed again. Her throat felt raw, and she felt exposed. Sickbay didn't bother her most of the time, but she hated being in it as a patient. "I missed you," she said. There were millions of reasons why she shouldn't, but none of that logic had pierced through the longing she felt when Philippa was gone. And none of it would make her feel any better when Philippa disappeared into the ether again, on the run from both Control and the Federation.

"I missed you, too," said Philippa, reaching out to stroke Michael's jaw. "Next time I die I'll be sure to take you with me."


End file.
